The Flying Foam Massacre was a massacre of Aboriginal people around Flying Foam Passage on Murujuga (Burrup Peninsula) in Western Australia by colonial settlers.[1] Comprising a series of atrocities between February and May 1868,[2][3] the massacre was in retaliation to the killing of a police officer, a police assistant, and a local workman.[4] Collectively the atrocities resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of Jaburara (or Yaburrara, Yapurarra) people, but with estimates ranging from 15 to 150 dead men, women and children.[5][6]

Details

After Police Constable William Griffis allegedly "abducted a young Aboriginal woman at gunpoint and took her 'into the bush'", he apprehended her husband Coolyerberri for "stealing flour from a pearling boat, on 6 February 1868."[7] In response, nine Jaburara men carried out a rescue overnight, and "in freeing Coolyerberri" Griffis was speared.[8][9] An assistant and a pearling worker were also killed during the fight.[7][10] The atrocities perpetuated by the two assembled parties of "special constables" were in response to the 7 February killing of Griffis,[8][11] the Aboriginal police assistant named Peter, and the pearling worker named George Breem, on the south-west shore of Nickol Bay,[12][13][8] along with the disappearance of a pearling lugger captain, Henry Jermyn.[14] Three Jaburara were arrested and convicted of Griffis' murder. Initially sentenced to death, their sentences were commuted to twelve years' penal servitude on Rottnest Island.[15]

Pearlers and pastoralists from the surrounding region, with the approval and support of Robert John Sholl,[16] the Government Resident in Roebourne,[17][18] organised two armed and mounted parties,[19] which travelled overland and by sea to Murujuga, the heartland of the Jaburara people. The two parties moved towards each other on the peninsula in a pincer movement. Official sources and oral tradition suggest that one atrocity by the parties, on a Jaburara camp at King Bay on 17 February, killed at least 15 people, including children.[12] Because these atrocities were the main factor in a sharp decline of the Jaburara population, they are significant and controversial in native title cases for descendants of the Jaburara people, as well as cultural heritage issues surrounding the World Monuments-listed Jaburara rock art on Murujuga.[20][21][22][23]

Remembrance

On 17 February 2013, the 145th anniversary of the first atrocity of the massacre, Aboriginal elders, and other leaders, held the first Flying Foam Massacre Remembrance Day at the King Bay Massacre site. Supporting actions were held at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, the Western Australian Parliament, the New South Wales Parliament, the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, the Tandanya Indigenous Arts Centre in Adelaide, in Brunswick, Melbourne, and in the Victorian Central Highlands towns of Taradale and Daylesford.

As of August 2022, the National Police Memorial in Canberra commemorates Griffis as a police officer who died whilst on active duty.[11] Details of his death, which make no mention of the rape Griffis allegedly perpetrated whilst on active duty and that led to his spearing by the husband of his victim,[7][10] nor of the massacre into which it ultimately degenerated, are shown as,[11]

speared to death by prisoner Coolyerberri who had been released by other Aborigines [sic] during the night whilst the party was camped on the Shore of Nickol Bay in WA's north-west.

See also

References

  1. ↑ O'Connor, Kendall; Feng, Sonia (16 April 2018). "Indigenous locals call for more information at site of Flying Foam Massacre". Australia: ABC News. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  2. ↑ Zaunmayr, Tom (16 April 2018). "Flying Foam Massacre milestone remembered". The West Australian. Retrieved 6 August 2022. If something like this happened in another country today, we would all be condemning it.
  3. ↑ Dyson, Michael R. (2002). Flying Foam Massacre: a grey era in the history of the Burrup Peninsula: British justice or downright vengeful bloody murder. Karratha: Karratha CAD Centre. OCLC 224012609.
  4. ↑ Yaburara Flying Foam Massacre 150 Years On 2018. Narrated by Ernie Dingo. Ngaarda Media. 9 April 2018. Retrieved 6 August 2022.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  5. ↑ "Timeline". Department of Indigenous Affairs, Government of Western Australia. Archived from the original on 23 July 2007. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  6. ↑ Zaunmayr, Tom (16 February 2022). "When flour theft led to genocide – remembering the Flying Foam Massacre". National Indigenous Times. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  7. 1 2 3 Bednarik, Robert G. (2002). "The Murujuga Campaign of 1868". Rock Art Research. 19 (2): 133–134. ISSN 0813-0426. OCLC 663872753. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  8. 1 2 3 Chapple, Robin (23 September 2020). Chapple, Robin (ed.). The Flying Foam Massacre (PDF) (Report). Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 August 2022. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  9. ↑ McGrath, Pamela Faye, ed. (2016). The right to protect sites: Indigenous heritage management in the era of native title (Report). Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. p. 288. ISBN 9781922102386. Retrieved 7 August 2022. In 1868, Constable Griffis arrested Coolyerberri, a local Aboriginal man, for stealing flour. Griffis had earlier abducted Coolyerberri's wife. Griffis and two companions were killed when Coolyerberri was rescued by a group of Aboriginal people.
  10. 1 2 Long, Peter (2020). "150th Anniversary of the Flying Foam Massacre". Retrieved 7 August 2022. We have heard of the sad, sad story of the Flying Foam Massacre, the rape of a young woman, the arrest of her husband Coolyerberri, his freeing by the tribe – which resulted in the deaths of Constable Griffis and two others – and then the great manhunt. Possibly 100 men, women and children were killed over a two month period – we will never know the correct number.
  11. 1 2 3 "Constable William Griffis". National Police Memorial, Australian Government. Canberra. 2022. Speared to death by prisoner Coolyerberri who had been released by other [... Aboriginals] during the night whilst the party was camped on the Shore of Nickol Bay in WA's north-west.
  12. 1 2 Gara, T. J. (May 1983). Smith, Moya (ed.). The Flying Foam Massacre: An Incident on North West Frontier, Western Australia. Papers presented in Section 25A, Archaeology, of the 53rd ANZAAS Congress. Perth: Western Australian Museum. pp. 86–94. ISBN 0724497501. OCLC 16757628.
  13. ↑ "Aboriginal History in Roebourne". Roebourne School. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  14. ↑ "Nautilus". Shipwreck Databases. Western Australia Museum, Government of Western Australia. 2022. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  15. ↑ "Western Australia". Illustrated Sydney News. Vol. V, no. 53. New South Wales, Australia. 3 October 1868. p. 59. Retrieved 6 August 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  16. ↑ Hirini, Rangi (16 April 2018). "Traditional Owners commemorate 150 years since Flying Foam Massacre". NITV News. Special Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  17. ↑ Birman, Wendy (1976). "Sholl, Robert John (1819–1886)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 6. Carlton, Victoria: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 0-522-84108-2. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 6 August 2022 – via National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  18. ↑ "Instructions of the Government Resident to Messrs McRae and Withnell". The Inquirer and Commercial News. Vol. XXXI, no. 1534. Western Australia. 1 April 1868. p. 3. Retrieved 8 August 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  19. ↑ Wilson, H. Margaret (1972). "Hall, William Shakespeare (1825–1895)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 4. Carlton, Victoria: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 0-522-84034-5. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 6 August 2022 – via National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  20. ↑ Milne, Peter (29 June 2022). "Gas plants expand while ancient Murujuga rock art waits on modern science". WAtoday. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  21. ↑ "Secret White Men's Business". Four Corners. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 20 March 2000. Archived from the original on 11 October 2014.
  22. ↑ Secret White Men's Business. Four Corners. Journeyman Pictures. 20 March 2000. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  23. ↑ "Regional Report of Inquiry onto Underlying Issues on Western Australia – 12.9 Curriculum Content and Teacher Training". Reconciliation and Social Justice Library. Archived from the original on 22 March 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2022.

Further reading

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